October 7, 2006:
Can’t I just get a shot for this?
I’m really sick of my big fat ass and my paunch and my bread dough arms, but I don’t feel like exercising or cutting back on the bonbons and alkee-hol. So what’s a girl to do?
Seriously.
And what’s up with all of my other 34-45 (our new checkbox) friends being all crazy fit and doing marathons and triathlons and centuries and playing sports and all that? Is this some post-35 fitness virus, a brand new sort of non-baby-driven biological clock? And why haven’t I caught it? Why hasn’t my fitness alarm gone off?
We stayed with Jason and Shelly in Chicago a couple weeks ago, and they’re some kind of ad for MODERN HEALTH AND VITALITY, playing soccer and tennis and striding around all slender and healthful (and it doesn’t hurt that they’re each like 15 feet tall), while Ron and I are these jolly half-pint butterballs, rolling from room to room. Rebecca and Kelly Sue are all triathlon, Rachel’s all Roller Derby and century or whatever you call it (I’m not down with the fitness lingo), Suzanne’s Super Yoga Queen. And I’m sitting on my ass day and night with absolutely no interest in anything active–except that kind of vague, wistful wouldn’t-it-be-great-to-win-the-lottery sort of interest.
Last time I saw Kelly Sue, she was a fucking pixie and I was a whale and I just wanted to sock her in the nose. I’ve known her since college, back when I was relatively fit (except for the fat ass, my old nemesis) and she was always struggling with her weight, and now she’s all trim and energetic and delicate and gazelley, and I’m plodding along like a miniature donkey. It’s hideous. And yet, here I sit. I mean, I live in a freakin SCHOOL, for chrissake. I’ve got a GYM. I don’t have a single excuse.
When we were in Chicago, Jason wouldn’t shut up about tennis, and I thought maybe that might be just the thing. After all, Ron already knows how to play. Plus, I enjoy costumes, and a sport that involves little dresses sounds pretty good to me. But there’s the rackets and the net and the balls and all that to track down, so I lost steam. I hate being all pudgy, and I love the notion of myself all fit and sleek and bouncy, but the inertia is so much more powerful than my vanity or imagination. I really need to cultivate some vanity. I could start by reviewing Basic Hygiene. How can I expect to muster the will to exercise when I can barely brush my teeth and wash my ass?
I never thought I’d be having to sweet-talk myself into taking a shower at 36.
I never thought I’d have a cat, either, and now I have 2. Well, sort of. One for sure and another we’ve been feeding, who is sort of ours. We just got him neutered & shots and all that so he won’t be contributing to the country cat overpopulation problem, and so he can come inside when it gets cold, but I don’t know if he’s really ours for keeps, or just ours financially. His name is Skinny.
Last week, we got some new residents, a couple, Lisa & Gordon, and I’m well pleased with them. They’re good. I know at some point, we’re going to end up with residents I can’t stand, but hopefully that will be far enough into the future of the Project that I won’t be so personally involved with everything, and I’ll have a buffer for the suckiness.
But back to my fat ass. The thing is, I really need to get the fitness bug NOW, because I’d like to be reasonably cute and fit when my book comes out (December 19). I don’t want to be too tubby to wear all the skimpy things in the book. And while I’m well past the good old days of 20-something sluttiness, I’d like to quit dressing so fucking mommy all the time. These days, I wouldn’t wear a halter top alone in my own home. Even miniskirts are out for Princess Hail Damage. Not that I specifically want to wear a mini-skirt, but you know what would be nice? It’s really fucking windy in Kansas, and I’d like not to live in mortal terror of my skirt blowing up and some poor, innocent bystander unintentionally getting an eyeful of my ass and thighs. I don’t fret over of the embarrassment of my skirt blowing up out of any sense of modesty, but with pity for the poor soul who has to see what’s under there. Yikes.
Can you get hypnotized into being healthy? Hm. I’ve always wanted to be hypnotized into doing something, but I’m too paranoid to go through with it. I’m afraid I’m too suggestible and they’d turn me into some kind of Alias-style sleeper agent and I’d have a subconscious alter-ego as a master assassin or a traitorous double agent. Which is all well and good, and would be a fair trade-off if it got me a built-in workout ethic and mad Kung-fu skills or something–except that being a master assassin or a traitorous double agent requires time (plus travel time–I’m sure they’re not going to trigger my alter-ego just so I can off someone in Harveyville), and time is exactly what I already don’t have enough of. So hypnosis is out. I would bring a friend with to make sure I wasn’t getting reprogrammed for evil, except that I’m sure the diabolical hypnotist would only reprogram them, as well. Then we’d have two master assassins out there, and I’m sure the world already has enough master assassins. And what if we ended up killing each other? I’d feel just awful.
Isn’t it cute how I think my friends and I are master assassin material?
